This invention pertains to a method for stabilizing, the transverse (across the long axis) cross-sectional footprint of the end of a structural I-beam to which an end mounting component is to be precision oriented and welded in preparation for attaching the beam to the side of a column in a precision building frame structure.
For the purpose of illustration, a preferred and best-mode manner of practicing the invention, referred to also as a method associated with the attachment of a beam to a column utilizing a beam-end mounting component, is described in conjunction with a particular, collar-based, column/beam mounting, or interconnect, system with respect to which practice of this invention has been found to offer particular utility. This system is described in a prior-filed, currently pending U.S. Patent Application identified as Ser. No. 09/943,711, filed on Aug. 30, 2001 for “Moment-Resistant Building Frame Structure Componentry and Method”, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,837,016 B2, granted Jan. 4, 2005. For background purposes only herein, the disclosure of this patent application is hereby incorporated herein by reference. Component parts employed in this prior-application-disclosed interconnection system are illustrated and described herein to the extent useful in explaining the substance, and the principles of operation, of the present invention.
It is typical that horizontal beams employed in a structural, plural-story building frame are formed with an I-beam transverse cross-sectional footprint, or configuration. The present invention, which, as will become apparent, can be invoked with any beam “cross section”, is specifically illustrated herein in the context of an I-beam configuration with respect to which it has been found to offer particular utility. Thus, specific reference herein to an I-beam should be understood to be reference also to other beam cross sectional configurations with respect to which implementation of the present invention may have utility.
It is also typical that, during the initial rolling or fabrication of a beam, such as an I-beam, a certain amount of transverse cross-sectional configuration distortion, or deformation, can occur as the beam cools from the heated rolling or fabrication process. In the case of an I-beam, this deformation usually involves angulation of one or both flanges out of a designed and intended condition of right-angularity, or parallel planarity, relative to the beam's central web. Such deformation is, for a number of reasons, undesirable. One important reason involves the issue of precision preparing of a beam for installation in a close-tolerance, precision building frame. A warped-cross-section beam can, under such a circumstance, create a problem. It is this kind of deformation which the method of the present invention successfully and easily addresses, thus to “clear the way” for successful and unproblematic use of otherwise ordinarily rolled or fabricated beam in a precision-installation mode of building frame assembly.
According to the preferred and best-mode manner of practicing the invention, the proposed beam-end “footprint correctness” stabilization, with respect to each beam end, includes the steps of (a) configurationally correcting and capturing the end transverse footprint of such a beam with an external structure to lock that footprint against subsequent configuration change, and (b) while so capturing, weld-attaching that end transverse footprint to a beam-end mounting component.
Another manner of expressing the method of this invention is to describe it as including the steps of (a) assuring the presence, at the mentioned beam end, of a configurationally correct transverse cross section with a defined male attaching portion, (b) forming, in a beam-end mounting component's attaching side, at least a partial, matching-cross-section, female reception structure, or receptor, which is adapted snuggly to receive, complementarily, the correctly cross-sectioned male attaching portion of the mentioned beam end, (c) inserting the beam-end male attaching portion into the beam-end mounting component's female reception structure to produce a weld-poised, captured condition between the beam end and the beam-end mounting component, and (d) while holding that weld-poised condition, producing a weld between the beam end and the beam-end mounting component.
In the practice of the invention which is specifically disclosed herein, formation of the above-mentioned female reception structure, which can be thought of as being a kind of receptor pocket, takes place on one side (called the attaching side) of a beam-end component of the type employed in the interconnection structure described in the referenced, prior-filed patent application.
The various features and advantages of the invention will become more fully apparent as the detailed description which now follows is read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.